Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Encountering War in the Scriptures and Liturgy
- 2 Monks and Warriors: Negotiating Boundaries
- 3 Spiritual Warfare: The History of an Idea to c.1200
- 4 Martial Imagery in Monastic Texts
- 5 Warriors as Spiritual Exemplars
- Conclusion
- Appendix: The Loricati, c.1050–1250
- Bibliography
- Index
- Title in the Series
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Encountering War in the Scriptures and Liturgy
- 2 Monks and Warriors: Negotiating Boundaries
- 3 Spiritual Warfare: The History of an Idea to c.1200
- 4 Martial Imagery in Monastic Texts
- 5 Warriors as Spiritual Exemplars
- Conclusion
- Appendix: The Loricati, c.1050–1250
- Bibliography
- Index
- Title in the Series
Summary
Among the sculpted capitals of the Romanesque church of Notre-Dame in Beaugency (dép. Loiret) modern visitors may notice a pair of human figures engaged in a curious and striking scene of combat. In the midst of a forest of columns topped with acanthus leaves and vines in which few human faces are visible, at precisely the point where the nave meets the choir, a fight to the death has just ended. the unlikely victor, an unarmed, unarmored young man, stands to the left, his slingshot still dangling from his right hand, a stone he will not now need gripped in his left. His opponent, whose huge size would prevent him from standing upright within the capital even if he should miraculously recover, is frozen in the act of falling to the ground, felled by a single fatal blow from the young man's sling. This is, of course, david and goliath.
While the medieval sculptor included a number of details found in the biblical narrative (1 Sam. 17), he also followed contemporary convention in representing Goliath as a knight; with his conical helmet, mailed hauberk, and kite-shaped shield, the fallen giant is accoutered for battle in the latest twelfth-century style. Like its iconography, the capital's meaning can be interpreted in light of both the biblical text upon which it is based and the social and spiritual world of its makers.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture , pp. 1 - 8Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011